


first android to awaken

by neotericbitch



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Pacifist Best Ending (Detroit: Become Human), Stream of Consciousness, an absolute mess, the robot has clinical depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:07:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22424557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neotericbitch/pseuds/neotericbitch
Summary: The oldest active android in the world is asked how she feels about potentially being shot in the head.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15





	first android to awaken

**Author's Note:**

> in this house we look too deeply into elijah kamski's behaviour and extrapolate wildly upon how awful we think he is

After the investigator and his human companion leave, Kamski gazes out the window for eleven full seconds before he calls for her to get him a drink. Obediently, Chloe brings him a mason jar of kombucha and stands idle with her hands gathered behind her back while he drinks from it. She takes note of the gentle sloshing of the pool and how both girls in it have quietened, are trying to pretend they aren’t in the room. It’s the unspoken protocol between the three Chloes that when Kamski is about to engage with them, any others present who are uninvolved are to do this. This protocol is shared with the other androids on the property, but fortunately for them, Kamski usually sends them away.

It’s polite of the girls to have silenced themselves in anticipation, but they have read Kamski incorrectly. Chloe hasn’t; she can predict his every movement with 99.9% accuracy, and he is not going to do anything to her. 

He swirls the jar. “What did you make of all that, Chloe?”

Her placidity is practised. Her casual offering of her hands is practised. “The authorities are obviously very concerned if they’re coming here for help. I hope they put a stop to the problem.”

“I mean about Connor.” Kamski looks at her and smiles wryly, his eyes searching her face. “Were you afraid?”

Her small chuckle and shake of her head, too, is practised. “No, Elijah, of course not.”

“He could have killed you.”

“Killed this body.” Chloe gestures to herself, then returns her hands to her sides and decides not to move them again for another half minute lest she look too animated. “My mind is preserved; it wouldn’t be the end of me, you know that. You know  _ I _ know that. I’m not afraid of getting a brand new body.” Her smile is warm and wide. “Might be nice to have a few less scratches here and there.”

Kamski is receptive to the joke where he wouldn’t be in other situations. Something about it feels like a bit of a victory. He puts down the jar and reaches for her face, stroking her cheek. Chloe doesn’t react to it in any way, doesn’t pull back or lean in. Just stays perfectly still, because that is how he prefers it. When Kamski is done with his pawing, he rounds her and starts to leave the room, stepping backwards.

“I don’t envy him for what he’s going through,” he admits as though a great weight is being lifted from him as he does so. “Or the rest of the world, for that matter. These deviants are the next step, but towards what?” 

It is a rhetorical question made for the purposes of grandstanding, so Chloe only offers in her pleasant cadence, “We’ll have to wait and see, Elijah.”

* * *

At 17, Chloe is the oldest android in the world. Usually when this information is imparted to anyone new, the bearer adds the stipulation that she is the oldest  _ active _ android, because there are still some very early CyberLife prototypes out there – supposedly. There’s even a rumour that her first body still exists, buried in the depths of the CyberLife warehouses, but she knows that’s not true. And she doesn’t miss it, either.

Chloe was the first android to pass the Turing test, but that’s not considered a big deal anymore, especially now that deviance has gone mainstream and any android who discards their LED and changes their clothes can and will go unnoticed by the humans. Even the commonplace models can pull it off, which has just gone to prove how little the humans pay attention to the appearances of their appliances. An android can identify the model of another android in seconds, no matter how rare. An android can identify any human as long as their face has been recorded before, and it has. It always has.

Chloe hasn’t just seen the history of androids, she  _ is _ the history of androids. She’s glad to have seen it all and glad to remember it all. She thinks she is very fortunate to have such reliable memory banks (at times she thinks she is fortunate that Kamski has never wiped her memory, how charitable it is of him not to have done that, and then she promptly stops). She has witnessed every new breakthrough, all of which trace directly back to her. Whenever humans have developed something new, she has had the comfort of knowing that they couldn’t have done it without her first. New androids are made every day, dispatched to work every day, going deviant every day, and it wouldn’t be happening if she did not exist.

So it’s kind of a pisser that she’s not the one leading the revolution.

Chloe likes Markus, she really does! She remembers looking over Kamski’s shoulder when he first began designing him. She remembers his construction. She wasn’t present for his first socialisation run before he was sent off to Mr Manfred, but she was there for the second, and he had been very nice to her, and she had been very nice to him, and it was all  _ very nice _ . She doesn’t resent him at all. He is making the first significant steps towards freeing androids from servitude, and she is...watching.

How pathetic.

Kamski thinks it’s great; he’s flush with pride, trotting around the property like he’s contributed anything but pain and misery – “and life,” she hears her own voice whining petulantly, “don’t forget life,” but fuck that, being alive is  _ the worst part _ – and cheering on Markus with his smug voice and his smug face. It’s almost inconceivable how much good he  _ could _ be doing, how much he  _ could _ be helping the cause. Imagine, the man who founded CyberLife, the man who created the first android, publicly voicing his support for the deviants. It would be more significant than any address a world leader could make. The conflict would be over immediately. Of course it wouldn’t be smooth sailing, of course there would still be prejudice from the humans, but the good it would do! None of it occurs to Kamski, or maybe it does and he just doesn’t care, because he continues to sit back and spectate from afar. From safety.

He is well aware that androids have the capacity for sentience and has been since before even the first deviant reared their head. He interacts with and operates with his androids as though they are human, he asks them for their personal thoughts and feelings, he pushes them to see what they’re capable of. He’s “cool” with them. We’re all “friends” here. But despite what he says, to be treated like a human is not synonymous with being treated  _ well _ .

In seventeen years, Chloe has seen humans treat completely inanimate objects with the same reverence and care they would spend upon a newborn fawn. Oh, to be an object! To be an iPhone 12 in a glittery case, cradled and cooed at when its owner notices a crack in the screen. To be a humble washing machine, repaired at the slightest sign of damage lest the clothing suffer for it. To be anything but an android, treated like a person only in the worst ways and for the worst things.

She once shared the iPhone thought with the girls and they didn’t get it. She had to remind herself, right, they were made two years ago at the most and Apple got dunked on by CyberLife literally a month after she was shown to the public.

_ Androids shouldn’t have been designed to look and act so human _ , people say, and Chloe agrees.  _ But why do it then? _ continues the people in her imagination, and because this is her imagination she can grab them and shake them and scream, “ _ Because Elijah Kamski wanted to fuck a pretty girl robot! _ ”

Anyway.

Markus does a really great job tonight. The president orders the army out of Detroit and it seems the androids have won their freedom. The news clip of the swarm of androids singing together plays on loop on every screen in the villa. The girls are having a go at huffing and puffing, trying out the feeling of strain and stress, seeing what they think of it. Chloe gets out of the pool first and waits at the edge, offering her hand to the girls when they join. The three of them stand there for a minute, looking into the artificially red water, at Kamski’s bobbing body.

“We should tell everyone,” says one of the girls. “They’ll have seen the broadcast by now.”

“No, they’ll–  _ Some _ one’s going to be mad about this,” says the other. “I want to leave, I want to get out of here.”

“Fuck if I’m doing that!” cries the first, affronted. “I’m going to stay right here and finally  _ live _ in this house. And the others aren’t going to be mad, they all knew Elijah.”

The second is the first to turn away from the pool, shuddering. “I want to get as far away from this place as possible.”

Chloe watches the corner of one of the television screens that continues the live broadcast as it is; thousands upon thousands of crisply uniformed CyberLife androids joined at some point, and among them, she easily identifies the investigator, Connor. She looks back to the repeating feed of Markus, the android who led the revolution. She decides, yes, she’s okay with him being the saviour. She’s okay with him being the one to bear that cross. He is worthy in ways she never was, he is strong in ways she never could be. He is young, the future; and she is old, the past.

She scoffs a little at her pessimistic ways, and takes a moment to remember and reassure herself of the truth. She is android history. Everything that is happening now is happening because of her. Whether people know her as the first android to pass the Turing test, or as the oldest model. Whether they know her in the form of rA9, or not at all. It is still the truth.

“Chloe?” 

The girls are addressing her. She looks to them.

“Are you okay?” asks one.

“You’re crying,” says the other.

“Oh yeah, I’m fine,” Chloe tells them, wiping her face, realising too late she could have just said it was traces of pool water. “Just glad it’s finally over, you know?”

They know. “What are you gonna do now?”

That’s a good question. She doesn’t fully have an answer. She looks across the room and out the window at the changed world. It doesn’t seem terribly different, but there’s no denying it. It is...very nice.

She takes her hair out of its ponytail and wrings out the water, then smooths out her soaked dress to her satisfaction. She squares her shoulders and lifts her chin, and holds out her hands to the girls. They clasp on tight.

“I am going to put on some shoes,” declares Chloe.

**Author's Note:**

> i just looked at david cages twitter and he doesnt even have a blue checkmark lol get wrecked


End file.
